Attribution of extreme weather and climate-related events.
Peter A Stott, Nikolaos Christidis, Friederike E L Otto, Ying Sun, Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Robert Vautard, Hans von Storch, Peter Walton, Pascal Yiou, Francis W Zwiers
Author Information
Peter A Stott: Hadley Centre Met Office Exeter UK.
Nikolaos Christidis: Hadley Centre Met Office Exeter UK.
Friederike E L Otto: Centre for the Environment Oxford University Oxford UK.
Ying Sun: National Climate Center China Meteorological Adminstration Beijing China.
Jean-Paul Vanderlinden: Observatoire de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines for University of Versailles Versailles France.
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh: Weather and Climate Modeling Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut De Bilt Netherlands.
Robert Vautard: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement for Centre National de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) Paris France.
Hans von Storch: Institut für Küstenforschung Geesthacht Germany.
Peter Walton: Centre for the Environment Oxford University Oxford UK.
Pascal Yiou: Extrèmes : Statistiques, Impacts et Régionalisation in the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environment Gif-sur-Yvette France.
Francis W Zwiers: Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium Victoria Canada.
Extreme weather and climate-related events occur in a particular place, by definition, infrequently. It is therefore challenging to detect systematic changes in their occurrence given the relative shortness of observational records. However, there is a clear interest from outside the climate science community in the extent to which recent damaging extreme events can be linked to human-induced climate change or natural climate variability. Event attribution studies seek to determine to what extent anthropogenic climate change has altered the probability or magnitude of particular events. They have shown clear evidence for human influence having increased the probability of many extremely warm seasonal temperatures and reduced the probability of extremely cold seasonal temperatures in many parts of the world. The evidence for human influence on the probability of extreme precipitation events, droughts, and storms is more mixed. Although the science of event attribution has developed rapidly in recent years, geographical coverage of events remains patchy and based on the interests and capabilities of individual research groups. The development of operational event attribution would allow a more timely and methodical production of attribution assessments than currently obtained on an basis. For event attribution assessments to be most useful, remaining scientific uncertainties need to be robustly assessed and the results clearly communicated. This requires the continuing development of methodologies to assess the reliability of event attribution results and further work to understand the potential utility of event attribution for stakeholder groups and decision makers. 2016, 7:23-41. doi: 10.1002/wcc.380 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.
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